Friday Funnies – When Hairballs Attack!

Yak? What yak?

Warden Julia here. You all know how much I love my three cats, right? To the moon and back. But on the flip side, there are also a few rather…um…repugnant things that go hand in paw with having cats.

For me, hairballs are at the top of that short list. There is only one sound more disconcerting than a cat about to yak, and that sound is…drumroll please…a cat about to yak in the middle of the night.

If there’s anything more terrifying than being woken up from a sound sleep to the disconcerting gurgle of a cat in full yak mode, I don’t know what it is. It happened to me last night. It was dark, I was groggy but suddenly wide awake and I knew that I had less than a minute to jump out of bed and grab something – tissue, towel, piece of paper, anything I could get my hands on – to mitigate the impending indignity heaped upon the poor carpet.

Also, a minute is not nearly long enough for a sleepy brain to decide whether to just lie there and deal with the carnage in the morning, or jump up like the house is on fire. Most of the time I choose not to spring to action. I’m not proud of that, exactly, but I’m just not in peak form when startled awake at 2 a.m. And that pre-projectile minute goes by so fast!! Soon enough I know it’s already too late. Once the damage has been done, what’s the point of waking up to clean? Right?

In the morning, I thought I might have to search for the yak, but there it was in the middle of the bedroom floor – the ugliest, most humongous hairball I’d ever seen. It was the length of a full grown cat, I swear!

It wasn't my yak, I swear

I stepped around the hairball because I was still too sleepy to deal with that atrocious thing. Hairball cleanup before coffee?? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, by the time I’d fed the cats and puttered around the kitchen, I’d forgotten all about that THING in the bedroom. How that could actually happen is beyond me…but it did.

I forgot all about it. That is, until I sauntered into the bedroom on a mission, stepped in something squishy and felt something cold and slimy on the back on my leg!!

Yep, I not only stepped in the yak with my bare feet, but I crushed it with such force that it flew up into the air, hit my back leg and slid down it all the way to the floor.

Eww!! Eww!! Eww! I screamed to no one, because the only witness to this mortifying moment was three very disinterested felines. My life will never be the same, but my cats…they just sat there nonchalantly licking the last trace of breakfast from their furry little faces.

Wordless Wednesday -- Kickeroo Love!

Rocky likes to "rabbit kick" his Kong Kickeroo.

When he's done giving it a good beating, he gives it a cuddle. MOL.

P.S. Please excuse all that fur on the carpet -- we have cats!! 

The Green Bean Cat Burglar

This is my favorite time of year. It’s so nice and warm, and once in a great while the Warden lets me out of my prison cell into the exercise yard so I can feel the sun on my furrs.

Sometimes I sneak over to the garden and stalk the green beans. Those long, skinny things are quite fun to play with when they’re dangling from their mother, but even more delightful to play with once I’ve caught one!

I grab the green bean prey with my teeth and carry it back to the deck. I like to flip it into the air and try to catch it with my paws. Whee! Every good huntress knows the rule – you must play with your prey before going in for the kill!

Sometimes I will give it a bitey, but truth be told, it’s not that tasty. I can play with it for hours, though, before I get bored.

What usually happens is that the other nosy inmates see me having so much fun with my prey that they try to run off with it. But I guard my kill! No one is going to make off with my green bean.

The Warden laughs and calls me her little cat burglar. Say what? Lucky for her, she’s a pretty good gardener and there are lots of green beans to stalk and kill.

There’s plenty to share with her favorite fur child. Besides, she says that green beans are a really cheap cat toy!

Wordless Wednesday -- Weedy!

Can you see me?

Come a little closer!

Ah, here I am, chillaxing in the weeds!

On Behalf of the Warden, I Apologize!

Annabelle here. I was supposed to have a warm and fuzzy post the other day, but the Warden hijacked my blog! (Yes, Warden, it IS my blog…didn’t you get the memo?).

Anyhoo, she was incensed over an article she read and just couldn’t hold her tongue. My brofurs and I told her to let it go, that giving the story legs would only make her feel worse, not better. The Warden rarely listens to us even though she knows we are wise beyond our cat years. Duh!

The thing about the Warden is that she just really *really* loves animals. Cats, dogs, bunnies, horses, hamsters…she loves them all. She even squees over those little white mice at the pet store and threatens to buy them all before they become dinner for some pet snake. BUT she knows that if she brought them here, they’d be OUR dinner instead of the snake’s, so what’s the point?

She loves all critters, ‘cept maybe insects. She hates those earwigs that invade her garden, but she says you have to draw the line somewhere, and that insects are unlovable. IDK if that’s true, but the Warden just can’t get behind insect adoration. She can appreciate the helpfulness of good bugs like beetles, but love ‘em? That’s too much of a leap, even for a self-proclaimed animal nut like her.

The Warden says she loves all animals more than she does most people. There are some exceptions, but for the most part animals have her heart in a way that most beans just can’t. She says she was hardwired that way…came right out of her Momma’s womb an animal lover, and her feelings just got stronger every day.

Via I LOVE TO LAUGH!

She told us a story once, about watching a Western movie as a young child. There's always fighting going on in those movies. The Warden said men were dropping like flies and she didn’t flinch. Then a horse went down and she couldn’t stop bawling. That was the last time she ever watched one of those movies, fur sure.

She can’t stand to see any animal suffer. It breaks her heart even when she doesn’t know the animal…it’s as though she can feel what they feel, because they’re connected somehow. And she doesn’t really feel that same sense of connection to most humans. Does that make sense to you?

So anyway, I want to apologize if the Warden’s last post made you sad. We will get back to our regularly scheduled, happy-go-lucky blogging now!! That’s a promise.

Love and kitty licks,
Annabelle

Pets Are For Life, You Idiot!

I read something that made my blood boil. It made me ashamed to be a member of the human race. It sickened me, and made me cry.

Allison Benedikt wrote a piece for Slate titled The One Thing No One Tells You Before You Have Kids: Don’t get a dog. I wish to God someone HAD told her that, before she got a dog and then casually tossed it aside after having kids.

Her dog, Velvel, was the center of her life…until she had kids. And then he became a burden, an inconvenient thing she no longer loved or wanted because she had something she considered “better.” 

I think people who decide their pets are no longer worthy of their love once kids come along are the lowest life form on earth. That she could toss aside her faithful pooch and treat him like garbage is bad enough, but to write about it so heartlessly while trying so hard to make her story “funny” is just really, really wrong.

The first offensive thing she said was: “John took the newborn hat from the hospital for Velvel to smell, to prepare him for the tiny human heading his way. That was probably the last nice thing we ever did for him.”

Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I was sad for her poor dog at this point, it was nothing for how she’d make me feel as she continued her filthy foray into the depravity of her mind. She wrote: “A friend of mine once told me that before he had a kid, he would have run into a burning building to save his cats. Now that he has a kid, he would happily drown the cats in the bathtub if it would help his son take a longer nap. Here is how I feel about that statement: Velvel, avoid the bathroom.”

Then she tries to make us believe that everyone she knows who has kids wishes they had never gotten a dog. She calls that a universal truth. It may be true among her circle of friends (for if they spend time willingly with someone so despicable, their judgment is certainly a bit “off”). But it’s far from a universal truth in my own circle. What about yours?

Those who have kids and then regret having a dog (or a cat) should never be allowed to have a pet in the first place. It’s a pity there isn’t some kind of litmus test for this. If you can’t commit to loving and caring for your pet for life, don’t get one. There really is no other way.

I want to scoop up this poor dog, hold his paw and tell him that I love him and that I will always love him no matter what. It’s what he deserves but will never get. What a crying shame.

Mickey is So Grounded!

Hi everyone…Warden Julia here. My oldest “son” Mickey was a bad, bad boy – and I have the gray hairs to prove it!

Mickey is one of those cats that just will not accept being indoors 24/7, at least not in the summer. In the winter, he still really *wants* to go out but he’s not fond of the cold and snow. (Well, who can blame him?).  All winter long he lounges on the back of the couch staring wistfully out the window. Come spring, he’s clawing at the door like a madman.

It stresses me out because I’m torn between wanting to keep him indoors where he’s safe, and allowing him to go out where I know he’s happiest. No matter which I choose, it seems like a no win. I can have an indoor cat who is miserable but safe, or an indoor/outdoor cat who is happy but at a greater risk of bad things happening.

I have tried making him stay in, and he comes unglued. He cries and paces nonstop, he scratches at the door and rips off the weather stripping. He just will not take no for an answer. So I compromise with him. He gets to go out during the day, where he mostly stays right on the deck, sleeping and enjoying the sun. I work from home, so I check on him many times during the day. He’s never allowed to roam at night, so when the sun is setting, I call him in. If he’s not there on the deck, he is within earshot because he comes right away. Always.

Except last night, when he didn’t. It got dark, and still no Mickey despite calling and calling him. I even shook the treat tub, which is my no-fail way to produce all cats within earshot. He still didn’t come. By 11:30, I start to worry. This is just not like him. I get my flashlight and proceed to walk around the yard, in the alley and in the neighbor’s yard. I look in the street, praying not to see a dead cat. I can’t find him anywhere.

Another hour goes by. I call him every 10 minutes, despite the possibility of waking up all my neighbors. I am dead tired, but won’t go to bed and leave him out all night long. So I wait. And call. And wait some more.

Finally, at one in the morning (!!) he appears, as though this is a perfectly reasonable hour for any cat to come home. Argh. I’m overcome with mixed emotions – so happy he’s finally home safe, but riproaring mad at him for making me worry and wait up half the night!

We have a new deal now. He comes in for dinner, and that’s it. He doesn’t get to go back out. I am NOT doing that dance again!